Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Ready for a journey, but don’t want the usual anthology of guidebooks to help you plan your itinerary?

“The idea of setting up a travel-books-only store came from my own experience. When I moved back to India in 2006, and wanted books on travel, I found stores here had little variety. I could order what I wanted online from sites, such as Amazon, but the shipping charges are so heavy. I decided to set up a facility in India where you can buy not just guidebooks, but also literature about unusual destinations across the world,” says Aashish Gupta, the founder of the site.

The site is hierarchically organized, and lets you search for books about specific places. For example, if you’re travelling to Indonesia, you’ll navigate through the section on Asia, then the South-East Asia region, then Indonesia, and finally choose a book listed under the three cities—Bali, Jakarta or Borneo. Under Bali, you get the usual Lonely Planet Indonesian Phrasebook and also find the Phaic Tan: Sunstroke on a Shoestring (Jetlag Travel Guide), and My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist by Sadanand Dhume.

As this online book store expands, Gupta has announced a trade-a-book service, which allows you to sell a book back to the website after you’re done with it and earn store credit.

Another value-added service that the site offers is personalized travel consulting. “No, this is not a place where you can get discounts on air tickets or hotel deals. We help you plan a trip or answer any questions that you may have,” explains Gupta. Yellowleg offers various packages for personalized consulting: If you purchase books worth Rs599, you can ask five questions; for Rs999, you can ask up to 10 questions. “We archive many articles from various sources, besides which we have access to many travel books from where we pull out this information.”

Ready for a journey, but don’t want the usual anthology of guidebooks to help you plan your itinerary?

“The idea of setting up a travel-books-only store came from my own experience. When I moved back to India in 2006, and wanted books on travel, I found stores here had little variety. I could order what I wanted online from sites, such as Amazon, but the shipping charges are so heavy. I decided to set up a facility in India where you can buy not just guidebooks, but also literature about unusual destinations across the world,” says Aashish Gupta, the founder of the site.

The site is hierarchically organized, and lets you search for books about specific places. For example, if you’re travelling to Indonesia, you’ll navigate through the section on Asia, then the South-East Asia region, then Indonesia, and finally choose a book listed under the three cities—Bali, Jakarta or Borneo. Under Bali, you get the usual Lonely Planet Indonesian Phrasebook and also find the Phaic Tan: Sunstroke on a Shoestring (Jetlag Travel Guide), and My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist by Sadanand Dhume.

As this online book store expands, Gupta has announced a trade-a-book service, which allows you to sell a book back to the website after you’re done with it and earn store credit.

Another value-added service that the site offers is personalized travel consulting. “No, this is not a place where you can get discounts on air tickets or hotel deals. We help you plan a trip or answer any questions that you may have,” explains Gupta. Yellowleg offers various packages for personalized consulting: If you purchase books worth Rs599, you can ask five questions; for Rs999, you can ask up to 10 questions. “We archive many articles from various sources, besides which we have access to many travel books from where we pull out this information.”

Disclaimer

Everything here is the personal opinions of the authors and is not read or approved by Pratham Books before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.